Adam Torres and Kelli Holmes discuss Mega Mix Expo.
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Show Notes:
Listen to Mega Mix Expo coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Kelli Holmes, Founder & CEO at TEAM Referral Network, explore the upcoming Megamix expo.
About TEAM Referral Network
TEAM Referral Network helps businesses grow through networking, relationships, and referrals. As a business networking and referral organization, TEAM combines face-to-face and online networking to create valuable connections.
With weekly chapter meetings in traditional groups, virtual networking groups, and community memberships, TEAM provides multiple ways for professionals to build strong business relationships. Additionally, the organization hosts dynamic networking events designed to enhance opportunities for collaboration and growth.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today we have Kelli Holmes on the line. She’s Founder and CEO over at Team Referral Network, and Kelly is going to be joining us at the Megamix Expo.
For those of you that have been following this story for a long time or for a while, we’ve been covering the Megamix Expo, bringing on some of the sponsors, some of the vendors and showcasing their business, why they participate, and just having a lot of fun, really. Kelly, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam.
Great to be here with you. Alright, so first thing first, have you been to one of these expo’s before or is this your first time? Oh no, I’m a veteran. We’ve been doing this event for the past few years. Super excited when they added the event in the IE last year. We love this event. Fantastic. First off, we’ll get into your business for sure.
So team referral network and what you do. And I think even , in the name of it, we got a feeling for it and understand why you’d want to be at a place like Megamix Expo. But that being said, a lot of different events you could attend, a lot of different ways you could spend your time. Why support this event?
Like what makes it special? Well, for us, it’s just a perfect market. You know, we work with small to medium sized business owners, entrepreneurs, professionals who are with companies where they’re an independent contractor in sales like real estate agents and mortgage lenders. So this is kind of just a perfect mix for us when we’re there at this event and we get the opportunity not only to network with the attendees, but also with the other vendors.
Tell me a little bit more about your business. And I see the, you’re a founder. , like how did all this get started? Well, it started a little over 22 years ago with a little chapter of team referral network here in Laverne, California. That little chapter is still going all these years later.
But what we really are is. A referral group where a networking group others might think of it that way where we have a exclusive category networking groups where each of our chapters meet once a week. There’s only one person per business category, kind of, you know, one real estate agent, one mortgage lender, one financial advisor.
And they formed this team of sales and marketing people for each other to help get to know each other, trust each other, like each other, and then refer business to each other when they can. And that’s referring business from your family, your friends, your business associates, your clients, your contacts, but it’s an appropriate way to help them build their business with the right people.
And so how long have you been a part of the organization and how long did this start? Yeah, as the founder of the organization, I’ve been here all 22 years. We are. Oh, amazing. So you’re not a founder of just the chapter. I misunderstood. So you found. Oh, wow. That’s absolutely amazing. Wow. What was this? So I thought it was of the chapter.
So I, my mistake. I’ve seen other networking groups, I’ve seen other things and whether it’s a referral group or otherwise, like, what do you attribute the success of this thing to? That’s amazing for decades. People are participating and showing up. Yeah, decades, we’ve opened hundreds of chapters, thousands of members.
Wow. I’m a master franchisor, so we have franchise markets outside of the Southern California area. So yes, and I have, personally I have the greatest job in the world. I get to work with the coolest people, that’s for sure. But really, there’s a couple of things that have always set us apart from other referral organizations.
And listen, there’s more than enough business to go around. I’m a big proponent of find your place and stick with it. But for us, we have a lovely and really meaningful. Our community outreach program works with nonprofits and in every single chapter of team, we donate a nonprofit, donate a membership to a nonprofit that benefits children or families in some way.
We bring them into the fold of the group, the community The team chapter embraces their cause and helps them further their cause. It’s a really wonderful way because we know our business owners and entrepreneurs and people who are in team want to give back, but doing like one more thing is very difficult, but now they can do it in their chapter.
And it’s been a wonderful way for us to work with the most wonderful nonprofits. It’s been great and then technology is really a key part of what we use to our highly search engine optimized website with all of our members having many websites on the website, many profiles helps get them a lot of search engine optimization opportunity and people actually get referrals from that along with what they get from their own referral partners in their chapter.
What are some of the categories, just to give people a feeling for like, what kind of professions and or businesses are appropriate to join? Yeah, kind of our top 10 and going almost in order here. Financial advisor, real estate agent, mortgage lender, all of the different types of insurances, property and casualty, commercial, different things like that.
Then we go into some of the other more common professions of like CPA or bookkeeper. We have dentists, personal trainers, printing companies, promotional product companies, solar companies, but it’s generally has a way of leaning towards the small business owner or the independent contractor of larger companies. what is the setup like meetings, cadence, like, give a feel for what it means to be a member and how that works. So our real signature is the fact that we hold weekly meetings, which a lot of people right now on this. listening to this podcast going, Oh, there’s no way I can do a weekly meeting.
And I want to shift how they think a little bit about that because the weekly meetings are critical in getting to know each other, learning more about each other’s business, having some accountability. And let’s look at the. Most successful companies in the United States. Let’s just take the Forbes list of the top 100 or top 250, you know, farmers insurance is on that list.
Ask the farmers agents if they attend a once a week sales meeting for their business. The answer is Yes. Take Edward Jones. Does their financial advisors attend a once a week meeting where they learn what they need to be doing to get more sales and opportunities? The answer is yes. And I could keep going on and on and on of these very successful companies.
As small business owners, we don’t have That kind of sales and marketing team to be working with. You know, we can’t afford to employ 20 people that are going to go out there and sell our business, but we can become part of a exclusive category referral organization like Team Referral Network and be meeting with 20 people every week who hear our one minute commercial.
And here is when we’re the featured speaker for the week. Thank you. They are able to take that information and when opportunity comes in their life, they have the opportunity to refer that business to somebody there. And so it’s magic and it’s necessary. If you’re wanting to have a sales and marketing team, they can’t afford to hire a sales and marketing team.
Yeah. Talking about, because you’ve been in this space so long, I mean, you’ve seen a lot of systems, a lot of setups, so obviously a lot of programs talking about networking in general. So some people that are like like where, where do they make mistakes when it goes to networking? ? Well, there’s a lot of mistakes that I see made out there.
There’s a lot of right things that are being done as well. But some of the things that I think of in terms of mistakes are a lot of people confuse. Activity for results. They’re like, yeah, I belong to a chamber. I go to all the events. I belong to an exclusive category referral group.
I attend faithfully. I, you know, get out there and I talk to people and I turn around and when you start really drilling it down. Well, who do they talk to them at the event? How do they talk to them? How do they deliver their message about who they are, what they do what they need next? A lot of times they sit here and say, I do all of this, I attend all this, and I get nothing.
But the next question comes, are you attending the right event? Okay. What’s your research? Like, I, did an event that I was speaking at up in the Salt Lake City area a few years back, and there’s about 100, 150 people in attendance. It was all general business people, kind of similar to what’s going to be at the mega mix.
Okay. And I happen, and I usually work the crowd and go out and meet people. That’s kind of who I am and what I do. I’m very curious. And so I happened to get to know for a brief moment a gentleman who was there attending this event. And I asked him what his business was. And his business was, I want to be delicate, it was bodily fluids testing in the medical arena, okay?
I’m upset about that. But I asked him, I said, well, who are you looking to be introduced to? Because, you know, what I do is Yes. And he said, well really I’m looking for doctors groups. You know those groups that own, you know a medical center and there’s a bunch of doctors in there. Are those doctors form a business entity?
They’re a doctor’s group and that’s who he was looking to connect with. Well, there is not anybody at this event. Really? I mean, maybe there’s CPAs there that might work with doctors, but you’re really going for a reach on that. And I was like, yeah, how’d you end up at this event? He goes, Oh, my best friend invited me and said it would be good for me to come.
Okay. That’s like confusing activity for trying to get results. But when I turned around and said to him, you know, I’d love to give you some. You know, maybe some tips on what the right type of networking, you know, event would be, and he said, great. And I said, do you golf? He said, yes. I said, you know, is there an American, what is it, the American Medical Association?
Is there a local chapter of the American Medical Association in Salt Lake City? Like, yes, there is. Do they put on events like golf tournaments? Yes, they do. I was like, well, perhaps attending that event would put you in a golf course full of doctors potentially. And he was, so the light bulb went on. It was like, you know, do your research on the event.
Make sure that you’re not confusing your activity for actually getting results. Really drill it down and figure out who you want to meet, where the best place is to go. Yeah, so be in the right room, right? Mm hmm, mm hmm, exactly. Be in the right room. So that’s a great thing.
What is another thing when you’re talking about, I like how you made that distinction, confusing activity with versus getting results. , what are the things that you find that the result oriented networker, like, Focuses on so right when we could, we could put that under that category as of course what else?
So, to get results, you have to connect with people in the right way, and most of us are connecting with people in the wrong way, if we, truth be told. And so, just think if you’re at a Megamix event, well, probably a Megamix event’s a little different. Let’s do a Chamber of Commerce mixer, okay? A lot of business people attend, a lot of people launch at Chambers, attend their mixers, and you know, what they go in with is a sales mentality.
I’m going to go in and I’m going to sell. What I do, right? Because I want to get business. Okay, and I’ve spoke to a lot of Chambers of Commerce over the years And I’ve done this many times where I pull the audience right about the point where I’m talking about this here And I say to them, okay, how many of you by raising your hand, you know, how many of you came here today?
Hoping to get business And like almost the entire room raises their hands. Okay. I said, okay, you say you came here basically to sell your business. Okay. Now let me ask you the next question. How many people have you came here to buy something and the entire room has their hand down? And I’m like, That’s the disconnect.
Okay, that’s the disconnect. I’m coming to sell something. Nobody is there interested in buying something. Okay. What you really want to do is make sure that you are connecting with people in a way that leaves an impression upon them and it needs to be a positive impression on them. And so, I have found in my experience, Adam, all of these years is that People love to share their information and if you are a good listener, like if you came up to my booth at the Megas Mix Expo and I’m there, you’re going to come up and you’re going to expect me to pitch my business.
I’m going to do the exact opposite. I’m going to sit there and ask you questions about your business. What do you do? How long have you been doing it? What do you love about it? You know, tell me more. I’d love the opportunity for us to follow up together. I might be able to help you. I might not. But if we think there might be a good connection here.
Can I reach back out to you after the event? And usually when you listen, which is something that not a lot of people do, when you listen and make an impression and then you ask permission to follow up, you usually get the opportunity to do so. That’s amazing. Great tips. And you obviously are a wealth of information and knowledge on this.
That being said, Kelly, if somebody wants to follow up, they want to learn more about team referral network. How do they do that? Sure. So a couple ways, first of all, if you’re going to be at the Megamix event, by all means, come on by the booth. I think we’re at 2060, gosh, I hope I have that right. But we’ll have a nice crowd of people there for you to meet and some great information.
But always can find us at teamreferralnetwork. com. That’s the best way to do it. We also have a big presence on Eventbrite and our social medias are all under Team Referral Network. So you can find us there as well. Fantastic. And for everybody, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the information in the show notes so you can connect with Kelly and her team and definitely go check out Kelly’s booth.
I’ll be there too. I’m going to definitely stop by and say hi. And we’ll be doing some live podcast interviews from there as well. So again, go to megamixexpo. com and pick up some tickets and we’ll definitely meet you at the event. And if this is your first time listening to a Mission Matters episode and you haven’t done it yet, Be sure to hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show each and every day. We’re putting out new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button and Kelly really appreciates you coming on and I look forward to meeting you in person. I do too, Adam.
See you there.